On April 29, 2006 02:09 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> The state of the art of computer science has gone (steadily?) downhill
> for the last 30 (maybe 40) years.
> The computers are bigger and faster, but the knowedge of what to do with
> them has decayed.
>
> There are a few pockets of resistance to the decay.
>
what an interesting comment!
i'm from the past - 1980s (pascal era even recall doing stuff with punch
cards) and while i am not particularly experienced with computers, i do
recall that back then things were 'harder' and you did have to know more
aspects of what you were doing. for instance, i was brought up to believe
that it was a good thing to declare your variables before using them and that
there is one way in and one way out of a loop. you don't have to do all this
anymore ... i enjoy the convenience and fluidity, but do wonder if this is a
good thing? writing precise compact code back then was not just a matter of
pride, but a necessity too.
i have almost settled on openbsd as 'the system' for us after trying various
linuxes and then the 3 'main' BSDs (couldn't get free and net to work the way
we wanted to on our servers). i like the simplicity of openbsd and i
especially like the fish!!
i do have a question about goals.
i have been told that freebsd (which ran quite well on my personal system)
strives for performance and stability. apparently, it achieves both quite
well too from what i have heard.
openbsd, on the other hand, doesn't even mention performance or stability in
its goals. (curiously, i've found on my system at least that some things seem
to work faster on openbsd than freebsd.)
so are performance and stability a bit of panacean bravado? is it possible
that all the bsds perform competitively and have similar robustness? is that
why netbsd chose to focus on being able to run even on a toaster, while
openbsd emphasized security?
--
In friendship,
prad
... with you on your journey
Towards Freedom
http://www.towardsfreedom.com (website)
Information, Inspiration, Imagination - truly a site for soaring I's
